


Borrowed Time

by James_Potter_Forever (as_with_a_sunbeam)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Tragedy, childhood illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 00:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10231424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/as_with_a_sunbeam/pseuds/James_Potter_Forever
Summary: James Potter had expected to die at age seven. The way he figured it, he'd been given fourteen years of borrowed time. He'd thoroughly enjoyed them. He'd had fourteen years of borrowed time, and now was his chance to pass it on. A burst of green met his eyes, and....





	

Effie Potter slowly petted her son’s messy black hair while they waited for the healer to come over. He was curled up on his side with his head in her lap, the loose hospital robes seeming to swamp his six year old frame. His hazel eyes blinked up at her slowly.

“Mummy, I don’t feel well. I want to go home,” James pleaded.

“I know, love,” she cooed. “But the healer needs to have a look at you to make you better. Don’t you want to feel better?”

He nodded slightly and closed his eyes once more.

“The healer will be back in a moment,” Fleamont announced, stepping around the partition. “How are you holding up, mate?”

“My tummy hurts,” James moaned. He shifted a little, as though trying and failing to find a comfortable position.

“I’m sure they’ll fix you right up,” Fleamont encouraged. The concern in his eyes told a different story. Neither of them could be sure of anything right now.

James had been ill and tired for weeks now, on and off. The normally energetic boy spent an inordinate amount of time lying on the sofa. He’d gone back to taking naps, despite falling asleep early and sleeping in late. He’d also been complaining of headaches and tummy aches.

Effie had tried every potion she could think of, and nothing seemed to have any effect. Well, besides the last one, which seemed to make everything much worse. James woke from his nap sobbing from pain. She’d bundled him up, called Fleamont at the Ministry, and headed straight for St. Mungo’s.

“Mr. and Mrs. Potter?” A healer asked, finally stepping behind the partition and smiling a greeting at them.

Effie forced a smile back, silently praying this confident looking young man could fix her baby.

                                                                                   

~*~

 

Effie sniffled wetly into Fleamont’s robes as he held her outside the private room to which James had been moved.  An exceedingly rare illness, the healers had concluded. Most children had unpredictable outbursts of magic, made things happen without understanding why. James was doing the opposite. Nothing was happening outside himself. James’s magic was turning inward, turning against him, attacking his body and causing him to become ill. No known treatment existed.

A few experimental treatments had been attempted in the past. Hope remained, however small. But she should prepare herself for the worst.

How did a mother prepare for the loss of her child, she wondered. She’d waited so long for James, her little miracle. After so many failed pregnancies, her little boy had seemed like a gift from a higher power.

She wasn’t ready to give him back so soon.

 

~*~

 

“I don’t want it! It makes me throw up!” James cried when the healer brought back yet another experimental potion.

“It’ll make you better, son,” the healer replied mechanically.

“That’s what you always say,” James responded petulantly.

Effie put a hand to her mouth to hide her chuckle. Her boy was no fool.

The healer thrust the chalice at the boy and commanded him to drink. James wrinkled his nose and looked at her pleadingly, but she nodded him on. His thin little shoulders slumping in defeat, he took the cup and began to drink.

Healer Helbert Spleen was an older man (though still a few years younger than her) with short silver hair and sharp grey eyes. He’d never win awards for his bedside manner with children, but he was a brilliant healer and the only one who seemed to have any hope that James would live past the age of seven.

As James had predicted, he was violently ill within minutes, heaving miserably into a bucket sitting at his side. Effie rubbed his back, cooing nonsense in an attempt to comfort him. The only comfort he found came from unconsciousness, which followed soon after the vomiting.

“This one looks very promising, Mrs. Potter,” the healer assured her.

She felt as skeptical as James, but nodded with a weak smile.

“Albus and Horace Slughorn both consulted on the mixture. No finer minds for potions exist. We’ll see results with this one,” he continued as he jotted notes on James’s ever growing chart.

She prayed he was right.

 

~*~

 

“Wow,” James gasped, leaning forward in his bed as Albus Dumbledore set the signed Quidditch jersey before him.

“Manners, James,” Fleamont chided half-heartedly. The look on his son’s face was likely thanks enough for Albus.

“Thank you,” James said dutifully, with real gratitude in his eyes. His thin little arms reached out to pull the jersey closer. “Did he really wear this in a game?”

“Oh, yes. Unfortunately not a winning game, although those are hard to come by with the Cannons, yes?” Dumbledore smiled with a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke to James.

“Mm,” James pouted slightly, hating to hear his favorite team maligned, even by a fellow admirer.

“How are you feeling, dear boy?” Albus asked mildly after James had ogled the jersey for several minutes.

James shrugged slightly in response.

“It’s been a difficult few days,” Fleamont supplied for his boy.

After a year of illness and treatments that were worse than the disease, James rarely complained about feeling bad anymore. He preferred to barrel through, ignore the pain until it became unbearable, and then to spend time unconscious when it was. He wasn’t likely to tell Albus about the stomach pain, the diarrhea, the headaches, the muscle aches, and the fatigue that plagued him every day, much less about the slight uptick that accompanied the latest experimental treatment he’d started.

Albus’s face fell slightly as he regarded James. “Yes, I heard. Tell me James, would you mind if I did a few tests while I’m here?”

“Why not? Everyone else does,” James replied, sitting back against his pillows, his good mood all but gone.

Albus spent the better part of an hour examining James, both with his wand and then by gently touching his temples and hand with his fingertips.

When he’d straightened up, Fleamont asked, barely daring to hope, “Did you find anything?”

“I have some ideas. I’ll need to speak with Horace about tweaking the potion some more. Perhaps I’ll speak to Helbert and Poppy about healing charms that could be added to the regimen,” Albus answered.

James’s expression turned more sour than ever.

Albus smiled at him again. “I know this is unpleasant, my dear boy, but I’ll see you well yet. I look forward to watching you play for your house team when you start at Hogwarts in a few years.”

With that, he turned to leave.

“Sir,” James called after him. Albus turned back towards him. “Thank you. For the jersey. And for helping me. I want to go to Hogwarts.”

“And so you shall, my boy. So you shall.”

 

~*~

 

James was staring longingly out his window when Effie entered his room with a tray bearing his medicine and some warm broth. She followed his gaze across the field, where the McKinnon family were mounting a game of Quidditch.

“You’ll be strong enough to play soon enough, sweetheart. You’ll see,” she tried to encourage.

“I don’t mind not being able to play,” James sighed, pulling his legs back into his bed. “I’d settle for someone to talk to.”

Effie frowned. “You have me and dad. We’re happy to talk to you whenever you like.”

“Someone my own age. You know, a friend. I’d do anything to have a friend. I’d be the best friend anyone could ask for, if someone would give me a chance.” He sounded so painfully lonely that Effie felt her heart was liable to break.

“Well,” she cleared her throat before continuing, “Maybe we could try to go to the park when you’re feeling well enough. Meet some boys your own age. I’m sure you’d make friends right away.”

James shrugged as he accepted the tray, and began staring intently at his broth.

Seeing she would get no more out of him, she began to leave. Just as she walked through the door, she heard him mutter bitterly, “Who’d want to be friends with me?”

She had to close her eyes to stop the tears from leaking out.

 

~*~

 

“You seem to be doing well,” Dumbledore said to James.

“You’re lying,” James replied bluntly. His mother and father were gone for the moment. No need for the brave, positive front.

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled at him from behind his half- moon glasses.

“Why am I the one who has this? No one else my age is sick with this. Am I just weak? My body is just a reject?” James asked, feeling like the questions were spewing out of him of their own volition.

“You’re not weak, my boy,” Dumbledore corrected. “In fact, it’s just the opposite. You’re very strong. Your magic is so powerful, your body isn’t quite sure how to contain it. We’re looking for a way to teach your body how to cope. When you’re well, I shouldn’t be surprised if you’re at the top of your class in everything.”

James looked at him steadily for a moment. He was used to adults blowing smoke at him about how special and wonderful he was. This seemed different. He seemed…genuine.

“Really? My magic is really powerful?” James asked hesitantly.

“Extraordinarily so,” Dumbledore confirmed.

When the old Professor left, James lay back against his pillows and glanced at his Chudley Cannons poster. He would be a great wizard. He was powerful. Extraordinarily powerful. He’d likely be the top of his year at Hogwarts. A smile came to his face.

Well, that was certainly something worth holding on for.

 

 

~*~

 

“It’s okay, Jamie,” Effie whispered to her emaciated boy. His beautiful hazel eyes blinked languidly at her from his sunken sockets, his cheekbones jutting out like mountain ranges from his pale, wasting face.

The world was blurred by tears, but she could see his face as clear as anything. She choked on a sob, her throat felt tight, but she forced herself to continue.

“You don’t have to be strong for me anymore, baby,” she cooed, running her fingers through what was left of his hair. “You can let go now.”

 

~*~

 

They actually found it—that elusive treatment all those great witches and wizards had been looking for actually came to fruition. They’d cut it a bit fine, in James’s opinion, but he couldn’t complain. He was alive. Alive and well.

He’d never know for sure if he’d stay that way. The healers had explained that his magic could become volatile again at any time, that the miraculous treatment that had spared him may not work again.

James tried not to let that bother him. Everybody died. He could get hit in the head with a bludger tomorrow, and talk of his disease would all be academic. No, he was going to live his life as normally as possible.  

By the time he went to Hogwarts, he was at a normal, healthy weight. His skin was pink and tan from time spent in the sun on his broomstick. His hair was back and shiny as ever.

He found over time that he didn’t really mind having been an ill child. Mum and Dad were much more lenient about his behavior than they likely would have been if he’d been healthy all his life. They tended to be more amused than upset when McGonagall wrote to them in a huff.

Although he often caused mayhem, he was also the top of his class, just as Dumbledore had promised. Magic came easily to him. He could transfigure anything, charm anything, conjure anything. (Potions was a bit of a challenge, but that didn’t really count as magic in his mind.)

And he had friends now. Friends he appreciated so much more after all those years of loneliness and isolation. Sirius, Remus and Peter. He could scarcely believe his good luck.

 

~*~

 

Sometimes James sat with Remus long after Sirius and Peter had gone back to the castle to go to bed. The boy with the pale skin, bruised eyes, never ending pain. The boy James had been once upon a time. James would cover him with a blanket and just watch him.

At fifteen, the memory of his childhood illness seemed almost a dream sometimes. He was hale and healthy now. He hadn’t had so much as a cold since Dumbledore had rushed in with that last minute cure.

But sitting with Remus, he remembered. All that pain. All that suffering. The urge to hang on despite it all. Even when no one else understood why, when no one else would have done.

(Sometimes, he dreamed of his mother’s face, giving him permission to let go. They’d never talked about it. He often wondered if it was just a dream. Even if it were, he’d appreciated it. He’d held on for himself, though, in the end. The chance to be a great wizard, to go to Hogwarts, to have _friends_ , that had been enough.)

He never talked about having been sick. Sirius knew in the broad strokes, because he never hides anything from Sirius. That had been the vow he’d made to himself over and over—if he were lucky enough to get a best friend, he’d never ever keep a secret from him. But he’d never even mentioned it to Remus or Peter.

As he watched Remus tremble on the cold floor of the Shrieking Shack as the dawn crept through the windows, he thought that he might do, someday. Remus might appreciate knowing he had someone who really understood. He might do more than mention it. They could have a real, long, mature discussion. Remus would like that.

But in the bright light of day, when Remus sat up with them to plan pranks and work on hexes for Snape, James would always change is mind. What he remembered most was wanting to be normal, to fit in, to be happy. Sharing the memories of his own pain with the boy who still suffered so would accomplish none of those things. So he’d smile brightly and allow Remus the illusion of good health for as long as he could make it last.

 

~*~

 

James tried desperately to keep the vomiting quiet. He’d put his uneasy stomach down to the unbearable heat of the summer sun and too many hours playing Quidditch at first, but now he was actually puking. He hadn’t puked since…since….

He was scared. Mum and dad doubtlessly would be more so. And it was probably just a bug. People got sick all the time, it didn’t mean they were dying.

He heaved again.

It didn’t mean he was dying.

“Sweetheart, is everything okay in there?” his mum asked through the loo door.

“Yeah, Mum, I’m….” he swallowed convulsively, tasting bile on the back of his throat. He couldn’t do it. He heaved.

“James!” Mum sounded panicked. He could hear her calling for dad and trying the door.

He heaved again as his mum pushed inside.

“Effie, calm down,” his father hissed as he joined them in the loo. His mum sounded like she was hyperventilating.

James spit and turned to look at his parents.

“I’m…I’m okay, Mum. Just something I ate, I think,” James tried to keep his voice reassuring and light. He even managed to conjure a smile. “I already feel better.”

It was true, actually, he realized as he said it. His stomach felt better now than it had all day. He hoped he’d vomited up whatever was troubling his tum and it was now over with.

His mum made an effort to calm herself as he pulled himself up to the sink to rinse his mouth. When he’d cleaned up, his mum wrapped her arms tightly around him.

“Why don’t you come lie on the sofa for a bit. Close your eyes,” his dad suggested.

He nodded and let his mum drag him to the sofa. She had him pillow his head on her lap while he stretched out and wriggled into a comfortable position. Within minutes, he’d fallen into a light sleep, his mother’s fingers scratching at his scalp soothingly.

 

~*~

 

The knock at the door woke him.

He was now on day two of whatever illness had settled into his stomach. Spending half the night on the floor hovering over the toilet brought back memories he’d buried long ago. Mum and Dad seemed to be having flashbacks as well. They’d barely left his side since yesterday.

“Who could that be?” his mum whispered.

Dad went out to the entry way to answer the door.

“Sirius?” his father’s voice carried back to the sitting room. “By Merlin, get inside. You’re soaked through.”

James’s eyes popped open. Sirius was here? He swung his legs off the sofa and sat up, ignoring the protest from his mum as he did so. He padded into the entryway, his socked feet sliding slightly over the polished wood floors.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius was saying, his voice hoarse. “I…I didn’t know where else to go. I…”

“Hush, son, it’s all right.”

James regarded his best friend as he leaned against the doorway, a hand guarding his stomach. Sirius was soaked through, pale, and sporting a spectacular green and black bruise on his cheek. All in all, he looked about as far from the confident, goofy Padfoot James had left at King’s Cross as was imaginable.

“What happened, Siri?”

“My mother’s psychotic. She wanted me to join Voldemort this summer. I…I just left. I couldn’t stay there….” Sirius rambled.

“All right. Come on with you. We’ll get you warm and dry. You can stay as long as you like,” Dad offered, guiding Sirius further into the house. “James, go lie down.”

James slid back over to the couch and his mother’s waiting arms.

“Sirius is going to stay with us,” he told her, failing to keep a smile off his face.

 

~*~

 

“Wanna play Quidditch? Looks like the rain finally stopped,” Sirius asked from beside him. They’d shared a room last night, and after Sirius’s second nightmare, a bed.

“Tired,” James groaned, pressing his face into his pillow to block out the glaring sunlight. His temples were pounding.

“Are you still sick? I thought you said you were feeling better.” Sirius flipped onto his side to face James, poking him in the shoulder to get his attention.

“Stop,” James brushed him off. “I don’t feel like I’m going to be sick anymore. Just tired.”

“Oh.”

A beat of silence followed. James felt a niggle of guilt, and with a sigh, he scooted over to wrap an arm around his best friend.

“I’m glad you’re here, Pads,” James whispered.

“I’m glad I’m here, too, Prongs.”

 

~*~

 

Sirius snapped awake, his whole body sticky with cold sweat.

He’d couldn’t stop dreaming about his mother, the look of hatred in her eyes as he fled. He’d really thought she was going to kill him. Actually kill him.

Voices were coming from the hall. A glance at the clock confirmed it was the middle of the night. A glance to his right confirmed James was no longer next to him.

He padded to the door and eased it open, listening.

Someone was throwing up. Sirius grimaced, ready to close the door and give Jamie some privacy, when Mrs. Potter’s voice came from the loo.

“We need to take you in, James.”

“Please, no. I’m…I’m all right. I’ll get better. Please.” James was crying. Sirius could hear it in his voice. Worry suddenly clenched in his gut.

“James,” Mr. Potter now. “This was how it started before. The stomach aches, the fatigue. You didn’t get out of bed all day today.”

“I don’t want to go,” James whimpered. “I hate it there. I hate it!”

They wanted to take James to the healers, Sirius assumed. But why would he be so upset? No one like St. Mungo’s, but if he needed help to get better….

Something tugged at his memory. Something James had mentioned once, back in first year. He’d been sick when he was a kid. Really sick. He’d almost died. What if he was sick again? The idea of life without James made Sirius feel sick to his stomach.

“We’re going, James. As soon as you’re finished in here. I’m going to put some robes on,” Mr. Potter said with finality.

The loo door swung open, and Mr. Potter stepped out.

“Sirius,” he greeted, a strained smile stretching his face. “I’m sorry we woke you.”

“I want to come,” Sirius said immediately.

“That’s not necessary--.”

“I want to come. I need to be there for Jamie,” Sirius insisted. Whatever happened, Sirius would stay by his side.

 

~*~

 

They thought he was having a relapse.

He was back in hospital, wearing those stupid thin hospital robes and waiting for a healer to come give him a death sentence once more.

“Do you think the healers who designed these were stupid or just perverts?” Sirius asked mildly from beside him.

James felt a smile pull at his lips. There was one difference from last time—Sirius was here this time.

“Perverts, definitely,” James decided, pulling subconsciously at the back of his robe where his ass was in danger of peeking through.

“I agree. Not bad, really. You get a good view, even of the birds who don’t need to undress for you.”

“Like what you see, Padfoot?” James asked.

“I don’t go for blokes, mate. Although, you have got a nice bum,” Sirius replied.

A comfortable silence followed.

“Siri?” James asked quietly, not sure if he should actually pose this question.

“Mm?”

“If I’m sick again, will you visit me?”

“All the time, mate.” 

“Even if I get really grouchy and unpleasant, and my hair all falls out and I look more disgusting than Snivillus?”

“I’ll move into your hospital room,” Sirius vowed. “I’ll use your invisibility cloak to hide from the nurses, and I’ll be here all the time. Can’t get rid of me, Prongs.”

“Good.”

Whatever happened next, James felt a weight leave his stomach as Sirius reassured him he wouldn’t be alone.

“Mr. Potter?” Healer Spleen asked, moving around his partition. “Are your parents here?”

“Mum and dad went to yell at someone about how long this was taking. I’m sixteen, you can talk to me.”

“And this young gentlemen?” the healer eyed Sirius.

“He’s family,” James answered succinctly.

Spleen looked down at his notes, then back at him, his grey eyes as intense as they had been ten years ago.

“You’re fine, Mr. Potter. You have a stomach bug. You’re body just responds to healing potions a bit differently, now, that’s why nothing was working. But it will run its course in a day or two.”

“I’m fine?” James repeated, sitting up too quickly. He put a hand to his head to stop the room spinning.

“You’re fine.”

“I…I had a headache,” James confessed quickly.

“Likely from dehydration. It says here you’ve been vomiting for a few days.”

“It’s really just a stomach bug?” he asked, not sure he believed.

Spleen nodded, a smile coming to his weathered face for the first time in James’s memory.

He actually whooped with joy. Suddenly, Padfoot flung himself at him. James clung to him for all he was worth, thanking whatever higher power existed for giving him yet another chance at life.

 

~*~

 

“Merlin, James,” Lily Evans sighed, holding a hand to her mouth.

They were engaged, now. Lily Evans was going to marry him. A blessed turn of events, to be sure, but he realized suddenly that he’d never told her. Never mentioned his illness, nor the possibility that she could wind up widowed at a young age if things turned bad again.

So he’d told her. They went on a walk through a sunny park by a sparkling lake, and he’d told her about his childhood as the birds sang merrily in their trees. Birds always seemed to be singing around Lily, he thought, as he watched her take in his story.

“But you’re okay, now? You’re not sick anymore?” she asked, gripping his arm tightly.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” James confirmed. “I just…I thought you should know.”

Lily nodded and leaned her head against his shoulder.

Then she came to an abrupt halt, dragging him to a stop as well.

“Wait. Were you sick when we were in school? Oh, James, was I…I didn’t ignore you when you were ill, did I?”

He shook his head.

“Nah, I was cured long before Hogwarts. I haven’t really been sick since, besides one time in sixth year.”

“You were sick in sixth year?” she asked, green eyes going wide with concern.

“Just a stomach bug, it turned out, although mum and dad dragged me to St. Mungo’s to get tested,” James explained. “I’m really fine, now, Lily. I just wanted you to know. They told me they couldn’t be sure it would never happen again. I felt like you should know what you’re in for if you marry me.”

“Is it…is it genetic? Would a child be at risk?” She asked.

“They don’t think so. It’s hard to tell, because it’s so rare, but they said probably not.”

They started walking again. Lily laid her head on his shoulder again. James felt the sun on his face, heard the birds chirping. He’d never dreamed his life could be so perfect.

 

~*~

 

James Potter had expected to die at age seven. The idea of dying no longer scared him. The way he figured it, he been given fourteen years of borrowed time to live on. Fourteen years he wasn’t supposed to have.

He’d thoroughly enjoyed them.

He’d gone to school, made the best friends in the world, caused mischief, laughed, danced, married the girl of his dreams.

And Harry. Harry, his perfect little boy, the best thing he’d ever done.

When he heard the door burst in, he didn’t even have to think about it. He screamed at Lily to run, to save Harry, and he ran out the hallway, smack into the face of evil.

He’d had fourteen years of borrowed time. Now was his chance to pass some of it on to Harry.

A burst of green met his eyes, and….

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback always appreciated!


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